“All the big technology companies are big because they did something great,” Page said in response to a question about the increasingly bitter rivalries in an interview with Fortune magazine on Tuesday. “I’d like to see more cooperation on the user side. The Internet was made in universities and it was designed to integrate. And as we’ve commercialized it, we’ve added more of an island-like approach to it, which I think is somewhat of a shame for users.”

The Google CEO added that it would be great if his company got along better with rivals, and that increased cooperation would help users. “What I was trying to say was I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn’t suffer as a result of other people’s activities … We try pretty hard to make our products be available as widely as we can. That’s our philosophy. I think sometimes we’re allowed to do that. Sometimes we’re not.”

The chief executive added that Google and the iPhone maker had a “big search relationship” and that he had been friendly with late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, though only “at times.”

Page said that Jobs’ comment about waging a “thermonuclear war” against Android was “for show” and to rally Apple’s employees, but that he would never use the same method to encourage his own workers. “That’s something I try not to do,” Page said. “I don’t try to rally my company in that way because I think that if you’re looking at somebody else, you’re looking at what they do now, and that’s not how again you stay two or three steps ahead.”